I watched as Elijah jumped for joy when his Dad promised him a bicycle only if he could take 1st position in his class.
The young lad was so excited that he couldn't hold the information so he ran out of the house. I bet he was going to tell his friends who also will join him to celebrate in advance.
Lol, I said to myself “ only if he had known, he would just keep it to himself and work hard on his academic performance but no, he would rather spread the good news first forgetting the terms and conditions attached to the promise.
If he had asked me I would have been in a better position to tell him better, at least I have got an experience of this stage.
Elijah became restless. The poor lad got overwhelmed by this good news but anyone who stays in Africa can tell better when such a promise is made to you by your Father.
We don't get to know until we are grown, this is a promise that is meant to be broken but they never told us when we were little an unkept promise I guess that's the rule guiding that particular one.
My friends and I were promised a bicycle only if we took first position in class. Should I say fortunately or unfortunately we all were from the same house in the same school and guess what we all were in the same class.
What kind of set up could this be? Did our daddies meet before coming up to us with such a wonderful promise?
Image generated By Ai gimini.
I ran out to my friends to tell them about the information but I was surprised that they also gave me the same information ( not that surprising anyway) because we all are kids and did not even think of the fact that our daddies will run a major street (give us false hope) on us.
Innocent us disregarded that fact played together out of joy.
We wake up every morning, prepare and go to school together, sit in the same class, learn together and when it's closing we all walk back home.
The term moved on gradually and in no time we came to the exam period, there was no much effort put in place to ensure that we fulfill our own part of the bargain as it still the same effort that would have been placed even if we were not promised a bicycle, our brain couldn't process the fact that it must be one person from the whole of us.
We all expected that term to be different as we all will take 1st position and go home for our bicycle.
In no time the term came to an end after our exams. We lived with that expectation at heart. Having a bicycle then feels like a king, so we all want that feeling.
It was just the second term and there is no party at the end of the term like the third term when a graduation party is usually organised for the graduating pupil.
We waited patiently for the day our result will be presented to us. At this point our head began to think straight, that was the point when we realised it's almost impossible for 2 people to come 1st position in a class not to talk of having 3 pupils emerge as 1st position in the class.
We became worried at a point as everyone needed to be that king in the area we needed a bicycle but for sure it's one person that will get to achieve that goal.
It was fun then as we still played together discussing how we will ride our bicycles, who we will give our bicycles and who we won't give to.
In that world there was no room for jealousy, we never envied each other, there was no evil in our heart, we still saw ourselves as friends, we walked to school together and came back home together.
After the exams the teachers are given a period of one week to compile our result. That period is one of the most interesting periods in school. All forms of learning are suspended and all forms of play are activated like we go to school by 7 am and come back by 1 pm.
We play from when we step into the school compounds until when we get home freedom is our benchmark in that period.
The long-awaited time came so soon that we were presented with our results. It's the same result like I said there was no different effort as kids we thought it will just happen by magic but as usual.
I came 5th, my friend Yusuf came 10th and the brilliant of us all who happen to be Timothy came 1st position. I and Yusuf were disappointed in ourselves but at the same time we were happy for our friend as we know what it means if he has been given a bicycle. We all jumped as we went home, we can't wait for Timothy's bicycle to arrive.
I presented my result to my dad when he came back from work, he seemed to even forget that he promised me a bicycle, he only said you have to do better in the next term he said nothing about bicycles I couldn't even talk about it since the condition was not met.
I guess the same happened to Yusuf but we can't tell how Timothy's own went.
All we expect to see is that a bicycle should be rolled into the house as a gift to be presented to Timothy.
We sat with expectations everyday as his dad would always say “Haaa, I forgot to buy the bicycle” whenever he came back from work, days crawled and turned into weeks and in no time the holiday period was over and so our hope kept fading until we saw no hope.
But a new promise of a bicycle by the end of the term only if we come home with 1st position.
Play the story on repeat and that's how we grew up to know this is just a strategy from the African fathers to keep you on your toes while in school.